KingKing is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts.
The female equivalent is queen regnant,[1] while the title of queen on
its own usually refers to the consort of a king.

In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous
peoples, the title may refer to tribal kingship.
Germanic kingshipGermanic kingship is
cognate with Indo-European traditions of tribal rulership (c.f. Indic
rājan, Gothic reiks, and Old Irish rí, etc.).
In the context of classical antiquity, king may translate in
LatinLatin as
rex and in Greek as archon or basileus.
In classical European feudalism, the title of king as the ruler of a
kingdom is understood to be the highest rank in the feudal order,
potentially subject, at least nominally, only to an emperor (harking
back to the client kings of the Roman Empire).[2]
In a modern context, the title may refer to the ruler of one of a
number of modern monarchies (either absolute or constitutional). The
title of king is used alongside other titles for monarchs: in the
West, prince, emperor, archduke, duke or grand duke, and in the Middle
East, sultan or emir, etc.[3]

The term king may also refer to a king consort, a title that is
sometimes given to the husband of a ruling queen, but the title of
prince consort is sometimes granted instead.

The English term king is derived from the Anglo-Saxon cyning, which in
turn is derived from the
Common GermanicCommon Germanic *kuningaz. The Common
Germanic term was borrowed into Estonian and Finnish at an early time,
surviving in these languages as kuningas. The English term "King"
translates, and is considered equivalent to,
LatinLatin rēx and its
equivalents in the various European languages. The Germanic term is
notably different from the word for "King" in other Indo-European
languages (*rēks "ruler";
LatinLatin rēx, Sanskrit rājan and Irish ríg,
but see Gothic reiks and, e.g., modern German Reich and modern Dutch
rijk). It is a derivation from the term *kunjom "kin" (Old English
cynn) by the -inga- suffix. The literal meaning is that of a "scion of
the [noble] kin", or perhaps "son or descendant of one of noble birth"
(OED).
English Queen translates
LatinLatin regina; it is from
Old EnglishOld English cwen
"Queen, noble woman, wife" from the PIE word for "woman" (*gwen-). The
Germanic term for "wife" appears to have been specialized to "wife of
a King"; in Old Norse, the cognate kvan still mostly refers to a wife
generally. Scandinavian drottning, dronning is a feminine derivation
from *druhtinaz "Lord". The Norse
RígsþulaRígsþula ends with the emergence
of Kón as a Grand son of Rig, resulting from a threesome between the
mythological characters Father and Mother, and Rig, through Jarl and
his wife Erna. Kon is the twelfth son of Jarl and Erna, and the his
progeny are the Konungs, litteraly, the younglings of Kon; from which
the name
KingKing comes, according to this tradition.
History[edit]
The English word is of Germanic origin, and historically refers to
Germanic kingship, in the pre-Christian period a type of tribal
kingship. The monarchies of Europe in the Christian Middle Ages
derived their claim from
ChristianisationChristianisation and the divine right of
kings, partly influenced by the notion of sacral kingship inherited
from Germanic antiquity.
The Early
Middle AgesMiddle Ages begin with a fragmentation of the former Western
Roman EmpireRoman Empire into barbarian kingdoms. In Western Europe, the kingdom
of the
FranksFranks developed into the
Carolingian EmpireCarolingian Empire by the 8th
century, and the kingdoms of
Anglo-Saxon EnglandAnglo-Saxon England were unified into the
kingdom of England by the 10th century.
With the breakup of the
Carolingian EmpireCarolingian Empire in the 9th century, the
system of feudalism places kings at the head of a pyramid of
relationships between liege lords and vassals, dependent on the
regional rule of barons, and the intermediate positions of counts (or
earls) and dukes. The core of European feudal manorialism in the High
Middle AgesMiddle Ages were the territories of the kingdom of France, the Holy
Roman EmpireRoman Empire (centered on the nominal kingdoms of Germany and Italy)
and the kingdoms of England and Scotland.
In the course of the European Middle Ages, the European kingdoms
underwent a general trend of centralisation of power, so that by the
Late
Middle AgesMiddle Ages there were a number of large and powerful kingdoms in
Europe, which would develop into the great powers of Europe in the
Early Modern period.

In the Iberian Peninsula, the remnants of the Visigothic Kingdom, the
petty kingdoms of Asturias and Pamplona, expanded into the kingdom of
Portugal, the
Crown of CastileCrown of Castile and the
Crown of AragonCrown of Aragon with the
ongoing Reconquista.
In southern Europe, the kingdom of Sicily was established following
the Norman conquest of southern Italy. The
Kingdom of SardiniaKingdom of Sardinia was
claimed as a separate title held by the
Crown of AragonCrown of Aragon in 1324. In
the Balkans, the Kingdom of Serbia was established in 1217.
In eastern-central Europe, the
Kingdom of HungaryKingdom of Hungary was established in
AD 1000 following the
ChristianisationChristianisation of the Magyars. The kingdoms of
Poland and Bohemia were established within the Holy
Roman EmpireRoman Empire in
1025 and 1198, respectively. In Eastern Europe, the Kievan Rus'
consolidated into the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which did not technically
claim the status of kingdom until the early modern Tsardom of Russia.
In northern Europe, the tribal kingdoms of the
Viking AgeViking Age by the 11th
century expanded into the
North Sea EmpireNorth Sea Empire under Cnut the Great, king
of Denmark, England and Norway. The Christianization of Scandinavia
resulted in "consolidated" kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, and by the
end of the medieval period the pan-Scandinavian Kalmar Union.

Contemporary kings[edit]
Further information: List of current sovereign monarchs, List of
current reigning monarchies, List of current constituent monarchs, and
Queen regnantQueen regnant § Current queens regnant

Currently (as of 2016[update]), fifteen kings and two queens regnant
are recognized as the heads of state of sovereign states (i.e. English
king or queen is used as official translation of the respective native
titles held by the monarchs).
Most of these are heads of state of constitutional monarchies; kings
ruling over absolute monarchies are the
KingKing of Saudi Arabia, the King
of Bahrain and the
KingKing of Swaziland.[4]

Royal and noble ranks
Royal family
Realm
Designation
Divine right of kings
Sacred king
Anointing
Coronation
High King
KingKing of Kings
KingKing consort
Great King
Petty king
Client king
Germanic kingship
Buddhist kingship
Tribal kingship
Big man (anthropology)

^ There have been rare exceptions, most notably
Jadwiga of PolandJadwiga of Poland and
Mary, Queen of Hungary, who were crowned as
KingKing of Poland and
KingKing of
Hungary respectively during the 1380s.
^ The notion of a king being below an emperor in the feudal order,
just as a duke is the rank below a king, is more theoretical than
historical. The only kingdom title held within the Holy Roman Empire
was the Kingdom of Bohemia, with the Kingdoms of Germany, Italy and
Burgundy/Arles being nominal realms. The titles of
KingKing of the Germans
and
King of the RomansKing of the Romans were non-landed titles held by the
Emperor-elect (sometimes during the lifetime of the previous Emperor,
sometimes not), although there were anti-Kings at various points;
Arles and Italy were either held directly by the
EmperorEmperor or not at
all. The Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empires technically contained
various Kingdoms (Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Illyria,
Lombardy–Venetia and Galicia and Lodomeria, as well as the Kingdoms
of Croatia and Slavonia which were themselves subordinate titles to
the Hungarian Kingdom and which were merged as Croatia-Slavonia in
1868), but the
EmperorEmperor and the
KingKing were the same person. The Russian
Empire did not include any kingdoms. The short-lived First French
Empire (1804–1814/5) did include a number of client kingdoms under
Napoleon I, such as the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Westphalia,
the Kingdom of Etruria, the Kingdom of Württemberg, the Kingdom of
Bavaria, the
Kingdom of SaxonyKingdom of Saxony and the Kingdom of Holland. The German
Empire (1871-1918) included the Kingdoms of Prussia, Bavaria,
Württemberg and Saxony, with the Prussian
KingKing also holding the
Imperial title.
^ Pine, L.G. (1992). Titles: How the
KingKing became His Majesty. New
York: Barnes & Noble. p. 86.
ISBN 978-1-56619-085-5.
^ The distinction of the title of "king" from "sultan" or "emir" in
oriental monarchies is largely stylistics; the Sultanate of Oman, the
State of Qatar, the
State of KuwaitState of Kuwait and the
United Arab EmiratesUnited Arab Emirates are
also categorised as absolute monarchies.

References[edit]

Thomas J. Craughwell, 5,000 Years of Royalty: Kings, Queens, Princes,
Emperors & Tsars (2009).
David Cannadine, Simon Price (eds.), Rituals of Royalty: Power and
Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (1992).
Jean Hani, Sacred Royalty: From the Pharaoh to the Most Christian King
(2011).